November / 2002

The Sony PD150 - Small Camera— Big Help!
The next time you take that small camera along, be open and flexible about what you might use it for

by Richard A. Stringer csc

The Sony DSR-PD150 mini-DV camcorder is useful in many situations; it’s great for low-budget shoots, as a second camera, when you need to be unobtrusive, and for running around shooting docu soaps. But on a trip to Northern Manitoba recently, I found some other reasons to have this kind of digital camera in your back pocket.

I was working on a project entitled Full Circle with seasoned filmmakers Robert Lang, Mike Fuller and Sheila Petzold. They were producing this Nature of Things episode as a follow-up to a show which started their careers in the mid 1970s. Right out of Queen’s University, they shot a little film about the plight of the Dene native tribes who had been relocated from their remote homes to the unfamiliar white community of Churchill, Man.

THE VERSATILE Sony DSR-PD150

THE NEW Sony DSR-PDX10

At that time, they were focusing their cameras on the natives’ efforts to get back to the land. Now we were looking at the community of Tadoule Lake, which developed from that historical turning point.

We were on the second stage of our shoot to document a special “Dene Gathering” in Lac Brochet, Man. — a sort of aboriginal convention with traditional elements. I was using a Sony DSR500 DVCAM shooting 16:9 and had the PD150 (with an anamorphic lens to match the 16:9 pictures) for certain sensitive situations where the big camera might be intimidating, as well as for circumstances when portability was key — such as when we travelled on all-terrain vehicles through the bush.

We had only four days to shoot the big Dene celebration. We arrived by small plane with a lot of gear (including Winnipegger Claude Savard’s Jimmy Jib) and discovered that two equipment cases were missing — all our sound gear and the accessory case, which included the DSR500’s batteries (I had one battery on the camera for the airport security check).

The next day we had to shoot important speeches at the conference, including an address by our principal character, Ila Bussidor. We decided to use the PD150, with a hook-up to the public address system as our remote sound-recording device (the DSR500’s mike helped find sync points later). We were also prepared to use the PD150 as a sound deck with its mike on a makeshift boom (as long as the one battery lasted), but we finally got our missing equipment the next day.

Another feature of the PD150 was a useful asset one night when we looked up in the sky and saw the magnificent northern lights. This camera features slow shutter speeds, which besides giving an interesting visual blur effect, also increases the exposure without using the gain switch. I focused the PD150 on the sky, and at a 1/4-second shutter speed, got amazing pictures of the subtle aurora borealis. The little camera offered four extra stops of exposure, which captured the sky’s low light level. This was not possible with the bigger DSR500 camera.

The slow shutter blur effect did not alter the slow movement of the fantastic lights; as a matter of fact I just kept rolling for a while and when the resulting tape is sped up, you get a time lapse effect which emphasizes the lights’ shifting, dancing patterns.

Early last year I was in France doing another native story on the history of the Mi’kmaq tribe. The Beta SP camera we had was acting up — playback was showing faulty images and it was impossible to get any NTSC playback in a PAL/SECAM world. We had a PD150 with us, so I plugged it into video-out and, using the VCR mode, I had a complete backup VTR.

Another handy feature on these cameras is the still-capture function — either to tape or memory cards. This can be useful in surveys and checking lighting continuity on drama sets. So the next time you take that small camera along, be open and flexible about what you might use it for.

By the way, Sony has just introduced a new handycam, the DSR-PDX10, which I have had a chance to look at. It’s smaller than the PD150 (in a PD100 body) but has better resolution. I found the small size, with no handle, and the new button positions a challenge, and I’ve prepared myself for yet another learning curve. I believe the PDX10 will create a lot of interest and add another step in the ongoing development of this special breed of camera.

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